The Bricklayer

TWENTY-FOUR

KAULCRICK ORDERED EVERYONE BACK TO THE OFFICE FOR A TWO o’clock meeting and asked Sergeant Henning to join them when he was done at the scene. Kaulcrick knew he had to break the news to the director that they had just incinerated two million dollars of Bureau money and realized there would be technical questions he wouldn’t be able to answer. Besides, it was the LAPD’s robot that had destroyed the money. And if push came to shove, Kate had actually spotted the trip wire and tried to stop it.
Kate got behind the wheel and told Vail she’d drive. She looked up and said, “I think we’re being followed.” She adjusted the rearview mirror to get a better look at the blue-gray trash can sitting on the backseat.
“It’s nice to see that watching two million dollars burn didn’t dampen your sense of humor.”
“Hey, life is good. All the bad guys are dead and the money is accounted for, unless your friend in the backseat has a different opinion.”
Vail reached over the seat and pried open the lid. Immediately the odor of garlic filled the car. “Ring any bells?”
“Funny, I suddenly have an overwhelming premonition I’m about to be shot.”
“Exactly. Just like last night.”
“I know you’re big on tying up all the loose ends, but hunting down whoever overseasoned a meal is a little obsessive, even for you.”
“Ever notice, every time you drive we have an argument?”
“Yeah, me driving, that’s the problem.”
“Maybe it’s low blood sugar. How about some lunch? No Italian, I promise.”


KATE AND VAIL sat at an outdoor table. She was nibbling on a single taco while he worked his way through a combination plate that looked more like an entire station at a buffet. She said, “You know, this isn’t the last meal the Bureau’s going to pay for.”
“You’ve just answered the one question that’s been on my mind.”
“Which is?”
“Why you’re not married.”
“Are you saying I’m too critical?”
“Oh, no, dear.”
“Sorry, it’s just that it’s kind of fun to find little things about you to pick at. Were you really wondering why I’m not married?”
“For a good-looking, only slightly neurotic woman, I think that is the presumed path.”
“You do know how to turn a girl’s head.”
“Okay, an attractive, confident, fearless woman.”
“Fearless? Does that mean you think marriage takes a certain amount of courage?”
“No, I think marriage takes a lot of courage. More than I have.”
“Actually, I question whether I do.” Her eyes hooded in a new level of contemplation. “My father traveled a lot, on business. On one occasion, after returning home, he passed along to my mother a sexually transmitted disease. By the time I got to high school, she had left him. Since then, the few guys I could have been serious about couldn’t pass the fidelity tests I ran by them. So here I am, career woman. Hear me roar.”
“What kind of test?”
“If I let that out, then someone could cheat it. Besides, I’ve come to realize that if I’ve got to give someone the test, he’s already failed.”
“So it’s going to wind up just you and your retirement check, a little too much of which will go for cat food.”
She smiled, trying to deny the tiny flicker of sadness in her eyes. “If the cats will have me.”
Vail said, “You were probably wondering why I’ve never been married.”
Kate burst out laughing, launching a small bite of her taco into the air.
“Then again,” he said, “maybe not.”


VAIL DROVE BACK to the office, and when they pulled into the garage, Kate asked, “You are coming to the meeting, right?”
“I don’t know if you saw the look on Kaulcrick’s face when he came out of that bomb van, but I’ve seen it before. This case is wrapping up. I’m just a matter of hours away from being two thousand miles east of here with a brick trowel back in my hand. Me being at that meeting will just make everyone uncomfortable. My presence has a way of getting in the way of a good rationalization, which several people in that room are going to need. Besides, it’ll be best for you to be seen in public without me tagging along.”
Kate knew she was probably wasting her time trying to convince him. “I’m sure the director will want to thank you personally.”
“Which will make it even worse.”
“You mean for me. Any credit you get will be less for Don, and he’ll see me as part of that.”
Vail gave her a half smile. “We burned up two million dollars today. Any credit being passed around may not be the kind you’re expecting.” Vail pulled up in front of the federal building.
“When the dragon’s slain, no one asks how many federal dollars it cost,” she said and pivoted toward him. “Why won’t you stay with the Bureau?”
“I guess because it is the Bureau.”
“We’ll have dinner tonight?”
“Does that mean you’re giving me one last shot at the brass ring?”
Kate leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “What makes you think you had any shot, bricklayer?” She got out and disappeared through the door.


THE MEETING STARTED at a few minutes before two o’clock. Tye Delson asked, “Where’s Steve Vail?” Everyone was sitting around the table in the SAC’s conference room.
Kaulcrick turned to Kate. “Where is he?”
“To tell you the truth, I have no idea. You know Vail.”
“I’d be surprised if anyone knows Vail.”
The phone rang and Kaulcrick hit the Speaker button. “Don Kaulcrick here.”
“Hello, Don.” It was the director. “Please tell me who is present.” The assistant director first introduced Tye Delson. “She’s been with us through this whole thing, giving legal opinions and making sure our search warrants were valid.” The director thanked her, and then Kaulcrick went around the table, naming the SAC, Kate, and the two ASACs. Finally he introduced Mike Henning as the sergeant in charge of the LAPD bomb squad unit that had helped at the tunnel and again today at the steam cleaners. “Mike has the technical savvy about the robot and what happened with the money, sir.”
“Mike, as always, the FBI is indebted to a local police department. I know your chief fairly well, and he’ll hear from me about your assistance. I cannot thank you and your people enough. Can you give me a rundown on what happened out there today?”
Henning detailed the attempt to recover the two million dollars, and how the electrical booby trap set by Radek detonated the thermite device accidentally.
Lasker said, “How do we know there was two million dollars in the box?”
“Before I tripped the device, we saw the stacks of banded hundred-dollar bills, and the box was full. It was the general consensus, based on the three million recovered, that it was about the right size to contain the missing two million dollars.”
“Where is the box now?”
“Your Evidence Recovery Team is packing it up. There’s not much of it left.”
“What about the contents?”
“Just a fine ash now, sir.”
The director said, “Don, I want everything carefully preserved. There are two agents from the lab on their way. They tell me that with microanalysis and spectroanalysis they can determine what was burned inside that box and how much there was of it. I just want to be sure the money is gone when I explain this to the White House. I know they’ll ask.”
“I’m sorry about the money, sir, but I don’t see any way that it could have been prevented,” Henning said.
“There’s absolutely nothing to be sorry about. You’ve all performed impressively during an impossible situation. You’ve recovered more money than you’ve lost, and two million dollars does not make a dent in what we would have had to spend if this went on any longer. We would probably have offered a million-dollar reward for Victor Radek alone.”
Kaulcrick leaned back. “That’s very generous of you, sir.”
“And, Mark,” Lasker said to SAC Hildebrand, “I’m going to try to get out to L.A. next month. I’d like to meet with all your people who were involved.”
“They’d be honored.”
“So where’s Steve Vail?”
Kaulcrick hesitated, and Kate said, “Oh, you know how much he likes to be thanked, sir.”
“Take me off speaker, please, Kate. Again, everyone, well done.”
Kate picked up the handset. “Yes, sir.”
“Where is he really?”
“It’s like I said, he really doesn’t like to be made a big deal of. I think it embarrasses him.”
“From what I’ve been able to read between the lines, he’s mainly responsible for putting this group out of business. Am I correct?”
She glanced at Kaulcrick and then carefully said, “A good deal of it, yes.”
“He’s too valuable to this organization to let go. I want you to offer him this permanently. He can go off anywhere he wants and work any case he wants. He can work directly for me.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Everything considered, it looks like you already have. You, too, have my appreciation. How are your injuries?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
“And tell Vail, even if we can’t figure out a way to keep him aboard, I will find some way to thank him.”
“I’ll threaten him with that.”
The director laughed. “How much longer will you and Don be out there?”
“I would guess we’ll be done with the evidence and reports in three to four days.”
“Come see me when you get back.”


TOM DEMICK had provided Vail with a rarely used alcove in a remote corner of the office’s technical services section. He was wearing evidence gloves and going through the trash container from the building on Ninth Street. It seemed too pat that the extortionists had advertised themselves as a pentad. Now five people, including Pendaran, had been identified, and everyone was assuming that because the body count had reached that number, there could be no one else involved. Why would they give away their strength up front?
He had started listing all the container’s contents on a pad of paper. Maybe he could, through content, fingerprints, or DNA, separate them by the person who had deposited them, allowing him to determine that there were more than five people. After processing a few items, he realized it would be an impossible task. It was time to cut the Gordian knot.
He reached in and shifted the contents around until he found the source of the garlic odor. It was an order of linguine with red clam sauce in a foil carryout container with a plastic top, which was in a paper bag stapled closed with the receipt attached. The top of the bag had been torn open and the lid pushed to one side. It appeared that the meal hadn’t been touched. Vail leaned a little closer and sniffed the sauce. There was far too much garlic in it for anyone’s taste. Now fascinated, he set it on a dusty desk beside him.
There was a good chance that whoever had set the meal in the trash did it so it would be noticed. But why? Would he have noticed it if he hadn’t smelled the odor of garlic so prominently the night before? Was this meant to lead the FBI away from something again? Or to something?
He dug around in the old desk and found a staple puller. He eased out the fastener and unfolded the receipt. Unbelievably, it was dated the afternoon before and was paid for with a credit card. It was for two orders of linguine. The restaurant, Sargasso’s, was located on Seventh Street, less than three blocks from the building where the shoot-out the night before had occurred, and less than two miles from the building they had searched this morning.
Vail wondered if he was supposed to follow another investigative chain from the staged meal. Then it occurred to him that every time he discovered one of these pieces of evidence—from the flamethrower car to the dead bodies to the burned money—another clue was left behind to follow up on, which in turn led Vail into another deadly situation. Was this another trap Radek had set in place before his death, or was someone else afraid Vail would discover his involvement and was trying to kill him? Like everyone else, Vail had assumed Radek was the mastermind behind the murders and extortion. But maybe he wasn’t. Vail’s cell phone rang.
It was Kate. “I thought you were taking me to dinner tonight.”
“What makes you think I’m not?”
“I haven’t heard from you in a while. I thought maybe you were hiding out on some rooftop in Chicago. You’re not, are you?”
“Let’s be European and eat late. Pick you up at nine?”
“You need time to fly back here, don’t you?”
“Something like that.” He hung up and thought about going upstairs and telling her what he was doing, but the night before he had given in to her and then she’d been shot. And if it had been the late Victor Radek who left the garlicky meal for him to find, Vail was chasing shadows. He put the credit card receipt in his pocket and headed for the garage.


SARGASSO’S WAS ONE of those small tucked-away restaurants that use crisp white linen tablecloths and hand-washed crystal that pulse in the low light to create quiet, intimate dining. A man stood with his back to the door inspecting the dining area with proprietary authority. “Excuse me,” Vail said, pulling out his credentials.
The man glanced at the identification but took a few more seconds to size up Vail. Then he held out his hand. “Armand Sargasso. I’m the owner, Agent Vail.” He had just a touch of an Italian accent left, as if he had come from Italy as a young boy. There was also a noticeable New York corruption of the hard consonants. “What can I do for the FBI today?”
Vail handed him the credit card receipt. “Yesterday, someone got carryout in the middle of the afternoon.”
“I’ll get my receipts. Would you like something? Espresso? No, no, it’s too hot. How about some nice gelato? I’ve got hazelnut.”
“Do you make it?”
“We even roast the hazelnuts ourselves.”
“Maybe a small dish.”
The owner disappeared into the kitchen. A few moments later a young man came out with the dish of ice cream topped with some kind of whipped cream and a waffle biscuit wedge, set it in front of Vail with a spoon, and nodded respectfully.
By the time Sargasso came back, Vail had finished all of the dessert.
“How was it?”
Vail pointed at the empty dish. “It was awful.”
The restaurateur laughed. “I’ve got a lot more stuff you won’t like. You should come back for dinner, my treat.”
“How about I come back, and it’ll be the government’s treat?”
“Even better.” He handed Vail the original credit card receipt.
It was signed “Andrew Parker.” “Who waited on him, do you know?”
“We do a pretty fair carryout business. It could have been any of my waitstaff. I was at the market yesterday afternoon.”
“This guy ordered both meals buried in garlic.”
“Oh, him. That would have been Nina. When she told the chef, he wanted to take a cleaver to the man. I heard about it when I got back.”
“Is Nina here now?”
“She’s working tonight. You come back for dinner. I got some beautiful veal this morning.”
“Then how about a reservation for two, nine thirty.”
As soon as Vail got in the car, he called Tom Demick. “Do you know who has the office contact for MasterCard?”
“I’m sure it’s on one of the white-collar squads. I could find out.”
Vail read him the information off the credit card receipt. “If you could verify the name as Andrew Parker and get the address on the account, I’d appreciate it.”
“Since you’re asking a lowly tech agent to do this, I assume the fewer who know about this, the better.”
“Notice how that isn’t even a question.”